Sunday Spotlight - Etsian: Miss Violet Lace

I'm so excited to introduce to y'all a wonderfully talented Etsian who makes some of the most fantastic handmade wigs with her mom! She's a total delight and I know you'll love this interview!

Hi Krista! Thanks so much for doing this interview for Little Chief Honeybee! For starters, can you give us a little background information about yourself?

Certainly! My name is Krista, I'm twenty-two years old and my mom and I make wigs together! Together we have been on many art endeavors and picked up skills from each.

We've been creating some form of art for over seven years now, starting with redecorating purses with vintage jewelry to making jewelry with vintage elements. We tried our hand at needle felting and scrapbooking, along with sewing, and we finally came to find our true art loves- wigs.

How about your etsy shop, Miss Violet Lace? How did that come to fruition? Did you just wake up one morning and want to construct wigs?

Making wigs has been a long time coming for me especially. I used to have long hair, down to my waist, when one day I spontaneously went to a salon and had it all cut off. I have regretted that day ever since.

Throughout the years my hair changed as I did, and I was willing to try every style in the hope of finding something I loved as much as my beautiful, flowing locks of the past. I permed, dyed, cut, buzzed, bleached my hair, until it was too damaged to grow anymore. While my own hair has become much healthier since, I still have a pixie haircut, mostly due to the fact that my own hair simply won't grow (or so it seems, it's quite stubborn and I think has a mind of its own).

I had searched for a way to make my hair long as it once was, so I visited many salons in my hope to get extensions, but was always disappointed to find that it would cost thousands of dollars, because of my coarse, short hair. (Coarse hair costs more than fine hair)

It wasn't long before I started hunting for wigs, and that's when I realized that this was something I could really do. I really could have long hair, and I could change the color and style as often as I liked, with no damage to my own hair, and at much less of a cost.

We decided to make wigs because we want to give other people the chance to have the hair they've always dreamed of, whether that be short, long, curly, straight, streaked or a rainbow of colors. Hair is so important, it can make you feel awful if you don't like it (or if you have a condition where you cannot grow hair, or have hair loss for any reason) or your hair can make you feel like a shining star..we choose to reach for the stars.

Where do you draw your inspiration from for everything you make?

We get inspiration from anything and everything..it might be a song playing on the radio or the color of the evening sunset. It may sound corny, but it's true. If we just let our imaginations go and don't try too hard, everything falls into place. Plus, it's way too much fun to dream up super extravagant styles or outrageous edgy cuts. I like to think of myself as different characters when coming up with a new design!

I know absolutely nothing about wigs and how they're constructed, but without letting us in on your every secret, can you give us a brief overview of how you do what you do? I'd imagine it takes quite a while!

It's time consuming, yes, but so worth it! To put it in simple terms, we make our wigs by first starting with a basic open lace cap, and we sew the synthetic fiber into long rows called tracks, or wefts. Then the tracks are sewn onto the cap (there's about 25-30 rows or more, depending on the wig itself).

When we make wigs with streaks of color, we start with one of our basic wigs, and sew the wefts of streaks in by hand, using heavy duty weaving thread. I find it best to sew streaks by hand versus machine sewing because I have more control over the placement, which is very important especially when working on something custom made.

How do you choose what colors. cuts and styles each piece will be?

That basically depends on our mood at the time. That's the true secret! Some of our best ideas happen in the wee hours of the morning while sipping a mug of hot cocoa (the perfect blend of sugar and caffeine!) and poring over pictures in fashion magazines!

Sometimes when I finish a wig I take a look and it seems like it's missing something..and that's when the tweaking begins- a snip here, a streak there and voila! It's perfect.

I see your shop has only been open since August of this year, yet you already have 240 sales! That's quite a feat! Did you start having sales immediately following your grand opening?

It seemed slow initially, though I think we were just eager to get our work out there. We had our first sale 5 days after opening. For the first month sales were up and down, sometimes we would sell wigs several days in a row while it would be 2 weeks apart for other sales.

It seemed to really take off in October, especially with Halloween coming up. Ever since then it's never slowed down! Sure, we've had a day here or there, but it's been pretty steady overall. I am absolutely speechless and truly humbled that so many people love our work!

In addition to Miss Violet Lace, you also have two other etsy shops that you run. Can you tell us a little more about those?

Our two other Etsy shops include Komis Couture and Zippie Sprinkles. Komis Couture is a shop for our vintage and modern mix of jewelry. Since the continued success of our wig shop, we haven't had as much time to dedicate to our other two shops. We sell our jewelry in a local boutique and find that to be successful as well. We have several projects in the works for our Etsy jewelry shop, which we hope to debut in the new year.

Our other Etsy shop, Zippie Sprinkles, consists of our cute and functional zipper pouches! This shop is mainly a hobby for us, we can't resist a cute piece of fabric! The pouches are great because they're affordable and they organize everything (plus they're fun to collect)! We have loads more pouches to go on, but listing them all is a goal we also have for the new year.

Where do you hope to see yourself and your businesses in 2, 5, and 10 years? Is this something that you'd like to pursue farther or will you be going another direction in the future?

2 years- We would love to be able to quit our outside job and work full-time on businesses (we work at the same place!). Working outside the home helps fund our businesses, but it's not ideal to go out in icky weather (and I can't get away with being in my pj's past noon occasionally!)

5 years- By this point I'd love to be better known, to get our name out there. We want people to know we're in this business for life. (Wig making that is)

10 years- I hope in 10 years I'm still doing what I'm doing, and at some point I will likely take over the business solely (but this won't happen for a very long time of course!) We would love to branch out with our jewelry business a bit, I've long dreamed of meeting some of my favorite designers- Betsey Johnson to name one.

There's a giveaway happening with your Etsy! Can you tell us about it?

Yes! We are having a big giveaway in celebration of reaching 200 (plus!) sales!

1 set of clip in extensions (the set includes 2 clip ins) The color will be a surprise!

1 clip in dreadlock (color also a surprise!)

1 hair perfume from our shop of the winner's choice

When: Beginning Saturday, November 20 until Saturday, December 4

Why: Celebration of reaching 200 sales

How to enter: To be entered in the giveaway, we would like you to review our shop either on your blog or by doing a video on youtube.com!

If you don't own any of our products, you can simply talk about why someone should buy from our shop, what you like about our shop, etc. and anything else you'd like to add.

If you do own our products, you can talk about what you like about it, why you'd purchase more from our shop, and include pictures of yourself wearing/using the product (pictures optional)

The giveaway is open internationally, anyone can enter! One entry per person.

Any last parting words for the LCH readers?

If you have a passion for something and you love doing it, with determination and time you will succeed! Don't let anyone (I really mean it!) ever tell you that you can't do something. If you pursue your dreams with persistence and positivity, I promise you- they will come true!

Thanks so much for the interview, Krista! We're tickled to have you! Congratulations on your shop's success and best of luck in the future!

*** If you missed the information on how to enter the giveaway, please make a video review or blog post about Miss Violet Lace and say what you love about their products or why someone should buy from them. Leave a link to either the video or the post in the comments below, and be sure to link back to MissVioletLace.etsy.com in the post or video description! A winner will be drawn at random using Random.org on December 4th! The giveaway is open to any and everyone, but there is only one entry per person! One winner will receive a prize pack of goodies from the MVL etsy shop (including a wig!).

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Do you have an Etsy or brand you would like to have reveiwed as part of LCH? Or do you have an awesome Holiday DIY that you'd like to guest post and share with everyone? Please send an email to kaelahbee@gmail.com and we can discuss how to get you featured on the blog!

You have no idea how enthused I am by these wigs, holy oh my GOODNESS!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmVWvukLTzoHere is my video on them, the quality is atrocious but it gives an indication of how excited I am for these wigs! (This has also been posted to my blog, www.iloveyoulessthanpunk.tumblr.com)xo

Such amazing wigs, after seeing your video reviw I HAD to get one and post about Miss Violet Lace A.S.A.P. When she told me that there was a give-away, it was like being on cloud nine :) I just placed my order after making a tough decision, and I can't wait to receive my first real wig. I envy that you are able to wear the bubble gum pink hair, that would be a dream for me if I could pull it off.

Thank you so much for this interview! Very interesting stuff. I have been drooling over MVL wigs for months now; I can't wait until I can afford to buy one of my own! I blogged about them here:Up From Under: Miss Violet Lace. Best wishes to you and MVL!